Sunday, March 23, 2008

Today my car went into the workshop again. This time, to replace the absorbers. Had a discussion with my mom to see which absorber should I take. So I settled with Kayaba absorbers from the workshop itself, as my earlier suggestion would require some waiting time to get stock, and also reliability issue would be another thing.

Kayaba absorbers for the front.

stock absorbers that are broken.

Total cost was about rm400 for installation and alignment, as well as for the rubber cover for the absorber. The mechanic did a really fast job, only taking like 40minutes to get the job done.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

On Wednesday while driving home from my workplace, I heard a burst sound coming from my car. I decided to ignore it, only to feel a rough and uneven driving experience. Then I knew it, one of my tyres have blown. I was at the federal highway, fighting through the jam in order to stop somewhere(driving with flat tyre can bend your rim). A motorist passed by me and honked to me pointing at the flat tyre which confirmed that I indeed had to stop. After 20minutes, I finally managed to reach a safe place to park my car which was in front of Wisma Consplant.

The unlucky part now that the tyre is blown, I didn't have the tools to change the tyre either. So I called up my mom, and she arrived shortly after. I checked her car for tools, but it seems that it is not compatible to use with my car. We waited a while, and then a guy who had just finished his work was walking towards his car. Quickly, I went to ask if I could borrow his tools. To my surprise, he did and he also offered his help to jack up the car. After another 15minutes or so, I managed to swap the tyre to the spare one. But, the spare tyre was also flat.

Nevermind that, the nearest petrol station was only across the road. My mom asked me to take a slow drive to the petrol station and I did. Upon arriving, I headed for the pump station and proceeded to pump air into the tyre. However, no air was going in to the tyre. I thought maybe the air valve of the tyre had broken then. My mom told me we should just head home and wait for the next day as it was about to rain.

The tyre gave way, and tore apart

The next day, I went to a workshop to replace my tyres. Apparently the spare tyre was not broken at all, the culprit was the pump station. I replaced all 4 tyres, because they were so old and would have risked tearing like the earlier one. I chose Yokohama Parada Spec-2, they cost RM170/pc including alignment and balancing. Apparently these are great dry weather tyres.They were quite new too, they were manufactured in Week3 of 2008.

This incident was pretty much unlucky for me, but it would also be a good thing, as I get to change all the tyres.